Findings may provide the foundation for a test to complement standard
clinical diagnosis, potentially enabling earlier intervention and treatment

REYKJAVIK, Iceland, July 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In a major paper
published today in the online edition of the journal Nature, scientists
from deCODE genetics (Nasdaq: DCGN) and the University of Iceland, along
with academic colleagues from the deCODE-led European SGENE consortium,
China and the United States, report the discovery of three rare deletions
in the human genome that confer risk of schizophrenia. Such deletions are
gaps in the normal sequence of the genome that can arise spontaneously
during the recombination or reshuffling of the genome that takes place in
the creation of sperm and eggs. The deletions reported in today's study are
located on chromosomes 1q21, 15q11 and 15q13, and confer, respectively, 3,
15 and 12 times greater than average risk of schizophrenia. These are the
first such deletions to be associated with risk of mental illness using
large sample sizes and validated across many populations. The substantial
increase in risk they confer make them a valuable basis upon which to
develop molecular diagnostic tests to complement standard clinical
diagnosis. The study, 'Large recurrent microdeletions associated with
schizophrenia,' will appear online today at http://www.nature.com.

"Schizophrenia is a disorder affecting thoughts and emotions. It is
therefore a quintessentially human disease, but one that is little
understood biologically and which is difficult to diagnose. These findings
are important because they shed light on its causes and provide a first
component to a molecular test to aid in clinical diagnosis and
intervention. These discoveries also demonstrate one way in which we can
use SNP-chips to find rarer genetic factors conferring risk of disease. In
many disease areas we have had great success of late in identifying what
these chips are best suited to find: common variants conferring relatively
modest increases in risk. But we know that individuals with certain mental
disorders such as schizophrenia tend to have few children, and thus that we
may have to identify a larger number of rare but high risk variants to
understand the genetic contribution to susceptibility. It is encouraging
that our efforts to use SNP chips to detect rarer variations such as
spontaneous deletions and duplications is now bearing fruit," said Kari
Stefansson, CEO of deCODE.

In the recent wave of discoveries of risk variants for common diseases,
those associated with mental disorders such as schizophrenia, autism and
others have been conspicuously absent. This phenomenon, and the fact that
people with these disorders tend to have few children, suggest that rarer
and perhaps spontaneously generated variants may account for a greater
proportion of the disease burden in these conditions than in others.
SNP-chips are not well suited to finding rare SNPs but can, with
sufficiently large sample sizes, be used to identify deletions and
duplications -- known as copy number variations, or CNVs -- which can also
be carried by healthy individuals in one generation and contribute to risk
of disease in the next.

In order to identify novel CNVs, deCODE first analyzed the genomes of a
total of approximately 15,000 parents and offspring taking part in deCODE
gene discovery programs and who had been genotyped with the more than
300,000 SNPs on the HumanHap300 chip. The deCODE team discovered 66 de novo
CNVs, that is, CNVs present in the genomic DNA of the offspring but not in
that of their parents. deCODE then tested these variants for association
with schizophrenia in more than 1,400 schizophrenics and 33,000 control
subjects. The deletions on chromosomes 1q21, 15q11 and 15q13 were
suggestively associated with schizophrenia in this first phase, and then
validated in 3,300 cases and 8,000 controls. The SGENE consortium is
comprised of deCODE genetics, the National-University Hospital in
Reykjavik, the University of Aberdeen, the Ravenscraig Hospital in
Greenock, the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, the
National Public Health Institute in Helsinki, the Ludwig Maximilians
University and GlaxoSmithKline's Genetic Research Center in Munich. The
SGENE affiliated groups taking part in the second phase of the project were
the University of Copenhagen, the University of Oslo, the University of
Heidelberg, the University of Bonn, the University Medical Center of
Utrecht, Nijmegen Medical Center, the University of Verona, the Duke
University Center for Population Genomics and Pharmacogenetics and the
University of Sichuan, China.

deCODE and the SGENE consortium gratefully acknowledge the
participation in this study of the thousands of patients, family members
and control subjects from these eleven countries. This study was supported
by the European Union through the SGENE consortium (http://www.SGENE.eu), by
grants LSHM-CT-2006-037761 and PIAP-GA-2008-218251.

About deCODE

deCODE is a biopharmaceutical company applying its discoveries in human
genetics to the development of diagnostics and drugs for common diseases.
deCODE is a global leader in gene discovery -- our population approach and
resources have enabled us to isolate key genes contributing to major public
health challenges from cardiovascular disease to cancer, genes that are
providing us with drug targets rooted in the basic biology of disease.
Through its CLIA-registered laboratory, deCODE is offering a growing range
of DNA-based tests for gauging risk and empowering prevention of common
diseases, including deCODE T2(TM) for type 2 diabetes; deCODE AF(TM) for
atrial fibrillation and stroke; deCODE MI(TM) for heart attack; deCODE
ProCa(TM) for prostate cancer; and deCODE Glaucoma(TM) for a major type of
glaucoma. deCODE is delivering on the promise of the new genetics.(SM)
Visit us on the web at http://www.decode.com; on our diagnostics website at
http://www.decodediagnostics.com; and, for our pioneering personal genome analysis
service, at http://www.decodeme.com.

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meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These
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These risks and uncertainties include, among others, those relating to our
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market acceptance, our ability to obtain and protect intellectual property
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effect of competitive products, industry trends and other risks identified
in deCODE's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including,
without limitation, the risk factors identified in our most recent Annual
Report on Form 10-K and any updates to those risk factors filed from time
to time in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q or Current Reports on Form
8-K. deCODE undertakes no obligation to update or alter these
forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or
otherwise.

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